Attitudes and Culture

[Deltango Vale]

There have been many discussions over the years concerning sex, drugs and rock & roll in SL. Well, I have come across one of the most intelligent articles ever written on the subject, which I'd like to share:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15265317

While the article concerns British binge drinking in particular, it can be generalized to explain a great deal about the culture wars that wracked SL over the past five years. For example, the 'ambivalent' and 'integrated' alcohol cultures map closely onto what I'd call the 'ambivalent' and 'integrated' sexual cultures. Anyone who has traveled knows that attitudes toward smoking, drinking and sex are vastly different in Scotland and Brazil, California and Italy, Canada and Argentina. The article gives me hope that the Anglo-Saxon world can be cured of its hangups, but perhaps I am naive. Perhaps instead, coffee will be added to the hit-list of crimes against humanity. Food and drink for thought.

[Void Singer]

 I agree with the articles premise based on magnitude, I think something got lost in the editing... since the article directly contradicts itself vis-a-vis "impairs ... cognitive ability" versus being "perfectly capable of remaining in complete control of their behaviour".

this is most likely a problem with trying to dumb down research that probably more fully qualifies the difference as alcohol does not instigate a change in a persons basic principle or personality, but can lead to poorer judgement of consequences.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Deltango Vale wrote:

The article gives me hope that the Anglo-Saxon world can be cured of its hangups, but perhaps I am naive.

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Hangups? Don't you mean hangovers?

Seriously though, culture is, at least partially, a form of genetic expression. I know that social anthropologists don't like to hear that (there is a reason that they chose this more elusive branch over biological anthropology), but it's true. And the way people behave under the influence of alcohol is most certainly a form of genetic expression. After all, alcohol strips away socio-cultural inhibitions, which makes Kate Fox's notion that the behavior of a drunk person is determined by cultural rules and norms quite questionable imho. If anything, alcohol causes people to show their true behavioral colors.

The English (as well as Germans and other Western European and Scandinavian nations) have bred themselves for violent traits. They are the pitbulls among the human "races" I mean, look at our (our = Western European) history. We've been constantly at each other's throats, we've always waged wars among ourselves and on neighboring nations, and when we ventured out and "discovered" other continents, we quickly overpowered the native populations and built empires on slave labor. That requires a certain amount of male aggression, so this trait has been heavily selected for.

I even believe that we have bred different social classes for different traits, almost like an ant colony. We have clearly practiced selective breeding among the nobility, but the lower social classes were also selected for certain survival traits (such as competitiveness, street smarts and ruthless aggression) simply by being kept in life-threatening poverty for centuries.

But I don't want to get too far off topic. Back to alcohol: I think this is one of the reasons that alcohol is legal while calmative, mellowing drugs like cannabis are not. Alcohol facilitates both procreation (by either sexually disinhibiting women or causing them to pass out) and aggression. Both war-time aggression and unplanned pregnancies (more sons for the war machine) have served us Western Europeans quite well in the past and have been essential for our war efforts and our empire-building success, which is why we still promote a culture of binge drinking.

The fact that alcohol is still legal and consumed on many social occasions is a perfect example that culture is not something rational, but mostly based on gene expression / instinct. It will take some time for us to breed these aggressive and addictive personality traits out of our gene pool, but a prolonged period of peaceful commerce and female sexual selection for docile males with a high level of social intelligence should manage that eventually. Although once we've reached that point, we will probably be overrun by more aggressive human populations

 

 

Edited for clarity, and to add a very fitting George Carlin quote: 

"We come from the northern European genes. Those blue eyes. Boy, everybody in the world learned real quick, didn’t they? When those blue eyes sail out of the north, you better nail everything down. Nail it down, strap it down, or they’ll grab it. If they can’t take it home, they’ll burn it. And if they can’t burn it, they’ll *bleep* it. That’s what happened to us. We're a warlike country. Even the domestic rhetoric is warlike. Everything about our domestic policy invokes the thought of war. We don’t like something in this country, we declare war on it. The war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on AIDS, the war on cancer. We’ve got the only national anthem that mentions *bleep* rockets and bombs in the *bleep* thing!"

That's genetic expression for you. We can call it "culture" all we want, but that doesn't change the fact that getting $#!7-faced and raiding our neighbors is in our blood.

[Pamela Galli]

Europeans only became the supreme conquerors relatively recently in history, and it was because their weapons and transportation (ships) were more advanced than the conquerees, not because they were any more aggressive.

The Spanish, for example, conquered the Azteks rather than the other way around not because they were more aggressive but because they 1) had the ships to take them to where the Azteks were and 2) had guns.

 

 

[Tommi Waydelich]

OMG, alcohol is a drug? damn! :matte-motes-evil:

I like beer very much (here in Austria it is just a normal drink like in Germany. By the way: Russians say beer is no alcohol),

Scotch, Bourbon, Vodka, Rum, Gin, Cachaca, Vine, Martini, Aperol, Campari and so on is very good too :-)

I also like to mix cocktails like Mojito, Martini Cocktail  or greyhound too.

For me it's just an issue of how much you drink, not if you drink alcohol or not.

Weed would be okay too (unfortunally it's illegal in most countries), cocaine, heroine, opium and all the so called harder drugs have to be rejected cause they really are not good for our health.

Rock'n'Roll can be great too (don't listen too loud, you ears will thank you)

Sex is wonderful and exciting and for some people out there it's sort of drug too, but it's still not illegal :-)

So don't use too much of all these drugs and enjoy, so you will stay healthy :matte-motes-smitten:

 

[Kelli May]

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Tommi Waydelich wrote:

...Sex is wonderful and exciting and for some people out there it's sort of drug too, but it's still not illegal :-)

 

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In England, sex and cannabis are treated very similarly. You can get away with both in private and for your own entertainment, but if you do it in public or try to sell it to other people, they put you in jail.

ETA: also, the anticipation gets you excited but afterwards you're mellow, and I suspect people talk about it more than they do it.

[Ziggy21 Slade]

Interesting article.

I can't say I agree with very much of it, it appears to have been written by someone who has possibly never consumed alcohol and has certainly never been drunk.

These experiments show that even when people are very drunk, if they are given an incentive (either financial reward or even just social approval) they are perfectly capable of remaining in complete control of their behaviour - of behaving as though they were totally sober.

This seems very unlikely to me, if it was true, surely the incentive of not losing ones driving license would be sufficient to make every drunk driver drive perfectly and we know of course that is not true. I know from my own over indulgences in the past there is absolutley no way I was always in complete control nor could I have behaved as though I was totally sobre. Of course to be in this state you have to drink quite dangerous amounts, much more I think than a person taking part in an experiment would be allowed to consume.

I do believe we have a cultural problem with alcohol here in the UK though, it is so interwoven with our culture it crops up everywhere, often you may hear a TV or Radio presenter refer over indulgences at a party they attended and this is always presented as big load of fun rather than as something with serious health consequences, our 3 most popular Soap operas, collectively watched by tens of millions all centre around Pubs, and the characters in these soaps constantly abuse alcohol, if something good happens they go to the pub to celebrate, something bad happens they go to the pub to comiserate, they USE alcohol rather than just enjoy a casual drink.

If we really want to change things (not so sure that we really do) we have to eject alcohol abuse from our popular culture first.

[Kelli May]

More seriously, to the OP: the article claims that alcohol isn't a disinhibitor, but it demonstrably causes euphoria in low doses and reduces mood stability as you take more. I think more accurately one could say that social pressures can exaggerate or reduce its effects. People even believe that some drinks affect them in different ways beyond the mere alcohol content (e.g. "Gin makes me weepy", "Whisky makes me aggressive" or "Wine makes me mellow"), when it's more likely to be personal associations that cause the different moods (e.g. they were unhappy the last time they drank gin, and the flavour, along with the disinhibition, reminds them of that time). 

I agree, though, that people should be taught that you are in control of and have responsibility for your actions and behaviour, even while "under the influence". That it is a modifier of behaviour and not a controller. 

[RudolphUkka]

Ziggy21 said: "it appears to have been written by someone who has possibly never consumed alcohol and has certainly never been drunk."

*

ZIggy21 couldn't have been more

*

wrong if he' said that the

*

sun rose in the

west.

***

Kate Fox is not some

*

tyro

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BBC

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journalist but a well-respected and credible

*

social

*

anthropologist who wrote the

*

amazing "Watching The English" and gets

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paid to get

*

drunk and jump

*

queues, and ask people in

*

supermarkets if they have had

*

sex in the workplace.

***

But then, you can't even

*

spell "sober" correctly, so you were probably

*

drunk when you posted your

*

misguided opinion.

***

Rudi

***

[Void Singer]

I'm going to strongly disagree that reaction while intoxicated is largely controlled by genetics. alcohols biological effects are pretty well known, as is the effect of environment on behavior. what is in question is whether alcohol or other intoxicants drive specific behaviors... and here's where I agree with the article, that just doesn't bear out.

what I think the article misses is that the narrower the social expectation of acceptable behavior is, the more likely an intoxicated person is to violate it, especially (but not only) if they normally predisposed to it.... simply because our normal cognitive abilities while not intoxicated are used to suppress those aspects that are out of line with social expectation, and if that expectation is very narrow in definition, it takes more effort. while intoxicated, cognitive ability declines, and we aren't able to devote the same amount of effort to the task of meeting social expectations, and are more likely to violate them. (a person who normally keeps their anger in check, may not find themselves able while intoxicated, though they may try. similarly a person who has no problem with that normally probably won't have a problem with it while intoxicated. here is where I agree about seeing a truer picture of a person, or at least what they struggle with)

I'll also disagree that intoxicant use is "irrational" in the context of person or society. on the immediate level it serves as a limitation to social expectation, preventing it from being to far from basic behavior, which causes individual stress, leading to societal breakdown (too loose of societal control is the other end of the balance). as such it acts as a mediating force between societal standards, and raw animal behavior. on the grander scale the reduction of cognitive ability facilitates a return to a more childlike state, allowing increased potential for learning (our extended childhood compared to other animals has born this out in studies) on a community scale.

[Dillon Levenque]

A very interesting article. She doesn't really say much about the 'studies' that were done, other than that studies have been done, but the suggestion that cultural attitudes about alcohol drive behavior certainly matches well with my life experience.

Ishtara is right, I think, in mentioning a genetic link to culture but I think she overstates the importance of genetics to culture. A culture may have come to be as a result of genetic tendencies but once in place, culture trumps genetics: I'd be willing to bet that a British-born and raised male of any genetic makeup who hangs out with hooligans would display a lot of aggressive behavior when intoxicated. People tend to do what's expected of them, I think. It makes perfect sense that if you expect that people like you get aggressive when drunk, you will do so.

@Kelli May: the ETA to the post about sex and cannabis was very funny.:smileyvery-happy:

[JeanneAnne]

Ethanol is an interesting molecule. The hydroxyl end is hydrophilic, which is what allows etoh to be water soluble, while the aliphatic end is lipid soluble, allowing it to stick into the lipid bilayer of cell membranes, disrupting their integrity. Having a lotuv ethanol molecules stuck tail first into the plasmalemma of neurons is what being drunk IS. They interfer with the transmission of action potentials down the neuron.

This is why it's bs when she says, "..so when in these experiments we are given what we think are alcoholic drinks - but are in fact non-alcoholic "placebos" - we shed our inhibitions," and "The effects of alcohol on behaviour are determined by cultural rules and norms, not by the chemical actions of ethanol." What nonsense! I don't think she knows any basic chemistry or physiology at all.

As for ethnic differences in reaction to ethanol, different populations have different ratios of alleles coding for alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenanse enzymes in the liver. Different populations don't differ in how ethanol affects them but they do differ in the rate at which ethanol & ethanal are metabolized. Also, these enzymes are inducible, in that these alleles are expressed relative to the presence or absence of the substrates of the enzymes they code for. In other words, the more a person drinks the more rapidly they break down ethanol & ethanal to ethanoic acid, which then enters the Krebs cycle. Ethnic differences in reaction to ethanol consumption can be explained in terms of the relative prevalance of these alleles. Cultural considerations need not even be invoked.

But I have more than an academic interest in ethanol. I had trouble with the stuff, along with X, when I was younger, and this trouble delayed me finishing college. When my friends & I would go into Queens to party, it wasn't them who routinely became behaviorally disinhibited to the point of doing things I never would have dreamed of doing sober. It wasn't them who ended up lost & abused & at risk for HIV infection, on several occasions. It was always only me. The reason it was always only me, and not my friends, is due to the way my liver processes ethanol, which is all about genetics and has nothing to do with culture. If it was about culture then why did my friends, who are basically from the same culture, react so differently?

So when the author of this article says, "I would like to see a complete change of focus, with all alcohol-education and awareness campaigns designed specifically to challenge these beliefs - to get across the message that a) alcohol does not cause disinhibition (aggressive, sexual or otherwise) and that b) even when you are drunk, you are in control of and have total responsibility for your actions and behaviour," not only is she being stupid, but she is threatening the lives of young people. She patently has no idea what she is talking about and needs to just shut up before someone takes her seriously and kids get hurt because of it. 

Jeanne

[Deltango Vale]

I think what she's getting at, though perhaps not in the right way, has less to do with chemistry (one can't deny chemistry) than attitudes toward what's 'normal behavior' under the influence of chemistry. There is also the issue of how much chemistry one ingests and how it mixes with individual personalities. We are all familiar with the happy drunk or the melancholy drunk etc. The same applies to most drugs. Some folks love acid and react well to it; others get bummed out and paranoid. I use her article to broaden out the discussion to attitudes and culture in general.

For example, a huge difference between Anglo-Saxons and almost everyone else is the focal point of social interaction. In most of Europe, Asia and South America, people gather around food. Alcohol is considered a type of spice to go with food. When I was growing up in North America (and the same applies to Britain, Australia and New Zealand), people gathered around drinks. Food is treated as a chore that comes with drinking ("Damn, I'm hungry. Hold my place while I use the loo and order a plate of fries.")

[Madelaine McMasters]

I've always thought of alcohol as pulling your foot off the brake, not grabbing the steering wheel out of your hands. When I was in college, my friends often went to the bars with expectations already in place for how they'd act. It was pretty clear to me that they were going to use alcohol as the excuse. It's an expensive way to toss personal responsibility out the window. Why not just drop the pants and go to town with all faculties intact?

Wisconsin leads the nation in binge drinking. That there are folks still driving the streets of my town after six DWI convictions seems like a celebration of the carnage they cause. It hardly suprises me that so many people don't think twice before driving drunk. It's what we do!

 

[Celestiall Nightfire]

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Deltango Vale wrote:

When

I

was growing up in North America ........, people gathered around drinks. Food is treated as a chore that comes with drinking ("Damn, I'm hungry. Hold my place while I use the loo and order a plate of fries.")

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Hmm, I've also grown up in North America, and the people I know don't gather around drinks...but around food. 

You're lumping "North America" together as one big cultural entity...but that is just not so.   

Almost no one in my entire immediate or extended family drinks...and if they do a rare glass of wine.  My friends don't drink...it's a running joke...at holidays... we all have unopened bottles of rum and brandy that were completely forgotten and never put into the eggnog.   I visited a small old winery in France in the spring of 2007, and brought back bottles of wine that have yet to be opened.

I attended a family wedding recently and the young couple had no alcohol at their reception.  Hundreds of people attending of all ages, dancing, mingling, talking, eating food...and no alcohol. 

Now, I will add, that I have cousins who have been living in Russia for the past 10 years, and they report that when attending weddings and receptions there, that the tables have a bottle of vodka per person.   Needless to say, they actually had to send us pictures for this, as we were so dumbfounded.

Deltango, you mentioned drugs like "acid", I don't think I know a single person who has ever done acid.   I've lived in many areas in North America, and I have never seen this done.

Oh, my friends and family don't smoke either.   

 

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Deltango Vale wrote:

For example, a huge difference between Anglo-Saxons and almost everyone else is the focal point of social interaction.

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Uh, my family is Anglo-Saxon.  (English, Scottish, Dutch , German)

It's not where you live, or where your ancestors hail from, it's the lifestyle that is chosen. 

 

[Celestiall Nightfire]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Wisconsin leads the nation in binge drinking.

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Wow...really?  

Hmm, maybe all those breweries have something to do with alcohol consumption?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_breweries

 

Maddy, when I was seventeen I started dating this Catholic boy and his family invited me to Mass.  After several times of attending Mass, and being told each time, that as a non-Catholic I was not allowed to go up for communion, I said, "Pfft...I'm going up there.  I think that's a silly rule".  

So, up I went, and the priest presented the communion cup to me just like to everyone else...only in my total naivete...I didn't realize that it was actual wine in that cup...and I gagged and almost spit it out.   Needless to say, my boyfriend's family was appalled...but not more appalled than I was...to find out that the entire church group was drinking wine on Sunday mornings!   *laughing* 

 

[Canoro Philipp]

culture and education has an undeniable presence and how we behave under the influence, a more permissive society will allow actions that another would not allow, so a person from a more restrictive society will still have some lines that it would not cross, even if it consumes the same amount of alcohol that a person in a more permissive society.

we are reasonable enough to keep control of our actions under the influence, is just that since we are expected, or "allowed", to behave a little apart from society rules, we allow ourselves to do so, but if we are in a critical situation that our behaviour outside normal social rules are needed, we are able to act following all acceptable social rules.

[Sammantha Koppel]

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Deltango Vale wrote:

 

For example, a huge difference between Anglo-Saxons and almost everyone else is the focal point of social interaction. In most of Europe, Asia and South America, people gather around food. Alcohol is considered a type of spice to go with food. When I was growing up in North America (and the same applies to Britain, Australia and New Zealand), people gathered around drinks. Food is treated as a chore that comes with drinking ("Damn, I'm hungry. Hold my place while I use the loo and order a plate of fries.")

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What people in North America gather around drinks instead of food?  Certainly not my family or friends.  Alcohol has always been present at family gatherings, but never the focus.  We've always made a huge deal about the food we prepare when we gather together. Drinks were just kind of there.

The only time I can think of when people gather around drinks instead is when hanging out at the bars.  Most of us get past spending every night in bars by the time we are 25.  So that leaves a pretty small segment of the population gathering around drinks.

With over 50 million people in the US considered obese, it's laughable to say we don't gather around food in this country.  I'd say food is more of an obsession than a chore.

[Melita Magic]

More white guilt? No thanks.

People are people are people are people.

[Melita Magic]

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Celestiall Nightfire wrote:

.but not more appalled than I

was

...to find out that the entire church group was drinking wine on Sunday mornings!   *laughing* 

 

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Not supposed to CHUG it.  ;p

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Void Singer wrote:

I'm going to strongly disagree that reaction while intoxicated is largely controlled by genetics. alcohols biological effects are pretty well known, as is the effect of environment on behavior. what is in question is whether alcohol or other intoxicants drive specific behaviors... and here's where I agree with the article, that just doesn't bear out.

---

It is not the reaction to alcohol that has a genetic basis (only insofar that alcohol might be metabolized more or less well), but behavior. Alcohol merely disinhibits. But the way people behave in a disinhibited state depends, more than anything else, on their genetic makeup.

 

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I'll also disagree that intoxicant use is "irrational" in the context of person or society. on the immediate level it serves as a limitation to social expectation, preventing it from being to far from basic behavior, which causes individual stress, leading to societal breakdown (too loose of societal control is the other end of the balance). as such it acts as a mediating force between societal standards, and raw animal behavior. on the grander scale the reduction of cognitive ability facilitates a return to a more childlike state, allowing increased potential for learning (our extended childhood compared to other animals has born this out in studies) on a community scale.

---

I don't think that alcohol could increase someone's learning potential. The greater learning ability of younger people is an effect of their greater neuroplasticity. Alcohol doesn't change the neuroplasticity of older humans. It actually seems to reduce memory functions, considering that larger amounts of alcohol can lead to memory loss, so the long-term potentiation of synapses seems to work a lot less well in a drunken state (and sometimes not at all). Not to mention that alcohol is a neurotoxin that can cause neurodegeneration after prolonged exposure.  

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

Ishtara is right, I think, in mentioning a genetic link to culture but I think she overstates the importance of genetics to culture. A culture may have come to be as a result of genetic tendencies but once in place, culture trumps genetics: I'd be willing to bet that a British-born and raised male of any genetic makeup who hangs out with hooligans would display a lot of aggressive behavior when intoxicated. People tend to do what's expected of them, I think. It makes perfect sense that if you expect that people like you get aggressive when drunk, you will do so.

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Culture only trumps genetics if cultural changes are enforced by a small number of people. Usually, culture is a combined effort of the majority population, and as such reflects the genetic makeup of this majority. Culture can even keep phenotypic majority traits alive and select against other traits, because behavioral phenotypes that don't meet cultural norms are usually less successful and therefore less desirable as mates. 

Think of it this way: Culture is a form of behavior. Humans have much more complex cultures than, say, chimpanzees. The only thing that distinguishes us from chimps is our DNA, which means that our slightly different DNA must be the reason for our complex cultures. This also means that cultural differences between populations indicate genetic differences, albeit on a smaller scale.     

All behavior ultimately has a genetic basis. Environmental factors only play a role insofar that different environments lead to different forms of genetic expression through environmentally induced gene regulation (existing genes are outright switched on and off), and, on a neurological level, through prepared learning (basically environment-activated instincts, such as a fear of snakes that is only "switched on" if a primate grows up in an environment where snakes are common, because in snake-free environments it would be detrimental to panic at the sight of a snake-like stick on the ground).

In other words, different environments activate different genes and potentiate different synaptic connections, but environmental influences can't activate anything that is not already there. So even though there are many different behavioral and cultural outcomes, all of them are, to a large degree, a form of genetic expression. 

 

 

ETA: We readily accept the fact that DNA affects neurological development and leads to certain behaviors when it comes to neuro-atypical people, such as schizophrenics or autists. Or think of criminally insane people. Everybody realizes that they are "made this way" and can't fully control their antisocial compulsions. We think of them as somehow diseased or damaged, but they are actually different phenotypes. We are only afraid of admitting that because it means that the majority phenotypes have just as much or little control over their own behavior.

This is also a nice example of how culture is not only determined by the majority DNA, but also leads to a selection for majority traits and against drastically different phenotypes, since it is a cultural custom in many societies to lock neuro-atypical people away and keep them from procreating. Especially (but not only) if they pose a danger.

 

ETA2: If culture was entirely learned, immigrants would quickly adopt the majority culture of their new home country. Instead, they tend to form cultural ghettos and try to preserve their original culture as much as possible. Cultural integration usually takes several generations and some gene flow between the host and immigrant populations.  

[Ceka Cianci]

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Deltango Vale wrote:

There have been many discussions over the years concerning sex, drugs and rock & roll in SL. Well, I have come across one of the most intelligent articles ever written on the subject, which I'd like to share:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15265317



While the article concerns British binge drinking in particular, it can be generalized to explain a great deal about the culture wars that wracked SL over the past five years. For example, the 'ambivalent' and 'integrated' alcohol cultures map closely onto what I'd call the 'ambivalent' and 'integrated' sexual cultures. Anyone who has traveled knows that attitudes toward smoking, drinking and sex are vastly different in Scotland and Brazil, California and Italy, Canada and Argentina. The article gives me hope that the Anglo-Saxon world can be cured of its hangups, but perhaps I am naive. Perhaps instead, coffee will be added to the hit-list of crimes against humanity. Food and drink for thought.

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thank god california finally became a country..for a little bit there i thought they were wanting a bailout  but i see it was just that  they wanted to bail lol

sorry ..couldn't resist hehehehe

 

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Europeans only became the supreme conquerors relatively recently in history, and it was because their weapons and transportation (ships) were more advanced than the conquerees, not because they were any more aggressive.

The Spanish, for example, conquered the Azteks rather than the other way around not because they were more aggressive but because they 1) had the ships to take them to where the Azteks were and 2) had guns.

 

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Before that point, our ancestors had a long history of raiding and conquering their closest neighbors. After a bad harvest, stealing the crops and herds of another settlement was often the only way to avoid starvation, and additional territory and slave labor were a welcome bonus. Even in this day and age, people become more territorial and turn against other social or cultural groups in times of economic hardship.

[Void Singer]

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Ishtara Rothschild wrote:

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Void Singer wrote:

I'm going to strongly disagree that reaction while intoxicated is largely controlled by genetics. alcohols biological effects are pretty well known, as is the effect of environment on behavior. what is in question is whether alcohol or other intoxicants drive specific behaviors... and here's where I agree with the article, that just doesn't bear out.

---

It is not the reaction to alcohol that has a genetic basis (only insofar that alcohol might be metabolized more or less well), but behavior. Alcohol merely disinhibits. But the way people behave in a disinhibited state depends, more than anything else, on their genetic makeup.

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So your argument is that genetic makeup causes an intoxicated person to be amorous or angry? Sorry, I don't buy that. Societal expectation has much greater impact on social behavior (and the perception thereof) and both expressions of anger and desire are two of the most narrowly defined social behaviors in any culture. not only that but the same behavior viewed from two different cultural perspectives have varying levels of acceptability, pointing squarely to social factors rather than genetic ones.

 

---

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I'll also disagree that intoxicant use is "irrational" in the context of person or society. on the immediate level it serves as a limitation to social expectation, preventing it from being to far from basic behavior, which causes individual stress, leading to societal breakdown (too loose of societal control is the other end of the balance). as such it acts as a mediating force between societal standards, and raw animal behavior. on the grander scale the reduction of cognitive ability facilitates a return to a more childlike state, allowing increased potential for learning (our extended childhood compared to other animals has born this out in studies) on a community scale.

---

I don't think that alcohol could increase someone's learning potential. The greater learning ability of younger people is an effect of their greater neuroplasticity. Alcohol doesn't change the neuroplasticity of older humans. It actually seems to reduce memory functions, considering that larger amounts of alcohol can lead to memory loss, so the long-term potentiation of synapses seems to work a lot less well in a drunken state (and sometimes not at all). Not to mention that alcohol is a neurotoxin that can cause neurodegeneration after prolonged exposure.  

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neuroplasticity is not the only source of learning potential... so is making correctable mistakes (granted not the most efficient teacher). though I will agree that excessive amounts of alcohol and their potential for for memory loss can negate those effects, this is not true of all intoxicants (nor does the average person tend to consume them to that extent)